obama

The Southern formula for liberty became embedded so deep in our psyche that it’s practically a genetic marker:

Freedom = Weak Government + White Racial Superiority

Tamper with either of those variables and you open the door to white slavery. The idea is so old and etched so deep that it has passed to our generation unchallenged. It inspired an enduring legacy of self-generated repression, a sort of crowd-sourced Fascism, able to perpetuate itself with little direction from above.

In the moment, this ruling may be a disappointment. However, if we are serious about having the courts exercise greater respect for the separation of powers, then we have to embrace that philosophy even when it’s politically inconvenient. Justice Roberts’ decision is a huge win for conservative jurisprudence even if it’s a painful political blow. In the long run we may be very happy about this decision.
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Despite the bailouts and the free line of credit from the Fed’s discount window Wall Street’s troubles are getting worse. JP Morgan’s $7bn (and still climbing) trading loss reminds us that old habits die hard. The number of companies listed on the major exchanges has dropped by nearly half over the past fifteen years. In spite of the rise of high-volume computer trading, average volume on the NYSE has been diving since 2007. Much of the remaining volume is going into so-called ‘dark pools’, private, unpublished markets where brokers go to execute trades that won’t impact the public price of a security. Dark pools now account for more trading volume than the New York Stock Exchange.

As the public exchanges lose their attractiveness more heavy-hitters are investing in private equity. The rise of private equity firms, the scrap dealers of finance, is a telling sign of what’s to come.

The Danes can, to an extent, support a big government. Their small population is deeply interconnected through robust institutions of social capital that incorporate their will into public decision making.

America is not Denmark. Our Federal government has to account for the needs of more than 300 million people spread across a continental land mass, representing a global microcosm of cultural, religious, economic and regional interests. We cannot make expert government work while preserving the personal liberty we treasure. Federal authority could operate differently and still protect the public from pollution, monopoly, and abuse by the powerful, but neither party is sincerely interested in exploring ways to do this.

Somebody has to stop the next Democratic President from borrowing money in our name for endless government boondoggles. Somebody has to stop the next Republican President from borrowing money in our name to write tax rebate checks to people like me. We have to change the process.
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